


A burden halved

by dana_norram



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Coitus Interruptus, Crying, Declarations Of Love, Hair Washing, Hurt Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Hurt/Comfort, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani Needs a Hug, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani Whump, M/M, Medical Trauma, Mild Smut, Protective Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Shower Sex, Soft Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:49:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29971443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dana_norram/pseuds/dana_norram
Summary: Nicky steps closer to Joe in the shower, rests a hand in the junction between his neck and shoulder, puts the other on his face, his thumb caressing right above his freckles. He feels the wet skin beneath his fingers and he knows it would taste salty if he decides to kiss it. Nicky takes a deep breath and concentrates on the feel of Joe’s beard under his palm. He sinks his fingers in the coarse hair with a sigh.“My love,” Nicky repeats, almost a whisper this time. Joe’s jaw twitches against his hold and Nicky wants to say that it’s okay, that Joe can let go, but the words fail him so he does the next best thing and presses their foreheads together.After Merrick, Joe is barely holding together. Nicky is there to lend his arms until he does.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 26
Kudos: 283
Collections: All And More Loves Joe Server Bingo 2021





	A burden halved

**Author's Note:**

> I had the idea for a story like this pretty much since I watched the movie back in July. Thank you [ odyssxus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/odyssxus/) for agreeing to beta this in such a short notice. <3

Nicky is almost coming when he overhears the sob.

For half a second he wonders if maybe he hasn’t mistaken it for a choked moan, but the truth is that Nicky has all of Joe’s sounds carefully catalogued and stored deep inside his soul, and he knows far too well when his love is in distress.

He also knows he should have noticed it before. Nicky always had good hearing, being a sniper would be far more difficult if he didn’t, but there are so many distractions right now.

The shower is still on for a start.

It’s partly because neither of them had bothered to turn it off and partly because it helped to muffle the sound of their fucking, somehow confining it within the four walls of the small bathroom. Maybe it’s only for Nile’s benefit, as Andy and Booker are used to it by now.

(Not that Nicky cares all that much about what would bother Booker. Not at the moment. Despite what Joe tells the world about his kindness, Nicky’s only human.)

The pressure of Joe’s hands on his hips isn’t helping either, Nicky decides. Nor is the almost too-much stretch of Joe’s cock drilling into him. But now that Nicky’s trying to focus, he notices how Joe’s movements are off kilter, and that’s enough evidence for him.

“Joe,” he calls in what he hopes is a gentle tone, but it comes out too quiet and Joe does not seem to hear him. If anything, he has started to fuck him harder, the grip on his hips tightening. Usually, that would be enough to tip Nicky over the edge, but not this time. He reaches back so he can put a hand over Joe’s. “Joe, _stop_.”

He feels Joe tense before his grip on Nicky’s hips falters almost instantly. Nicky disentangles their bodies carefully but quickly so he can turn around, and what he sees almost knocks the air out him.

He remembers going for Joe’s hair when they first got in the shower, but Joe had secured his wrists with a tired smile. He insisted to wash Nicky’s first, for he had dried blood and brain matter stuck on the back of his head. Nicky reluctantly accepted, and he tried to not fidget too much, but Joe’s long fingers were careful and efficient.

When Nicky got his turn he took his time. He always loved Joe’s hair, and he made sure to pick all pieces of glass that got trapped between his curls, before he pulled Joe under the shower stream and shampooed his locks clean, caressing his scalp with the tip of his fingers. He remembers the feel of Joe’s face pressed against his neck as he rinsed the foam of his hair, Joe’s mouth, hot and wet, glued to Nicky’s skin. That got them started.

Now, Nicky watches helplessly as Joe shrinks under his gaze, wet shoulders slumped, arms shivering like he’s collapsing under a too heavy burden. His curls are loose, splattered all over his head and his cock is soft against his thigh. Even with unshed tears, Joe’s eyes look foggy and dim, not so different from those pieces of glass Nicky had pulled from his hair.

Nicky aches to touch him. He wants to pull Joe into his arms until the shivering stops, but he doesn’t move. His mind races too quickly, and he tries to assess the situation to find the rightful target so his aim can be true. So much has happened over the last few days. South Sudan, Nile, Quỳnh, the van, the lab, Andy, Booker... and Nicky can’t help wondering which one lays heaviest on Joe’s shoulders.

“My love,” Nicky says, and holds his breath when Joe blinks at him. Because whatever Joe sees makes him shake his head before he looks down again, as if distracted by the water going down the drain, their feet bare, skin wrinkled. Joe balls his hands into fists, knuckles turning white, chest expanding and contracting as he seems to try and fails to calm himself.

Nicky goes over South Sudan first. The memory of Joe’s face covered in blood wasn’t a rare sight, neither was his eyes full of worry as he stared at Nicky from across the room. He remembers how Joe broke formation and crossed in front of Andy, just to get to him. Come morning, he watched as Joe tried to make jokes about Copley and a pile of shoes, the deflection in his voice so clear it was almost deafening.

Then the freight train, the trapped heat inside of the metal car. Nicky still could feel the lingering touch of Joe’s long fingers brushing against his pulse, checking him in his sleep, his embrace tight and unforgiving even before they were startled by Nile’s first death. Joe’s voice was anxious, but determined when he declared _we have to find her_ as he committed the young face to paper.

In Goussainville, they exchanged quick glances as they realised Nile was talking about Quỳnh, and when Nicky saw the raw pain spread out in Yusuf’s eyes he wanted nothing more than to reach for his hand and anchor him, a poor choice of words. The realisation that their sister was still alive weighed heavy on their hearts. But they couldn’t, not with Nile rubbing her chest with a phantom pain, not when Andy was right there, her guilt still tender, the only wound she was never able to close.

And if it wasn’t for the despair in Joe’s voice as he begged for him to wake in the back of that van, maybe Nicky would have laughed at the fact they were captured mere minutes after he declared how that was their worst fear. He replays Joe’s words, a love letter written in desperate, rushed tones. For a moment, Nicky could almost ignore the cuffs digging into his wrists, but when Joe kissed him, he knew Joe was wondering if that would be their last one.

Nicky remembers being woken by the sound of Joe screaming as they collected a sample of his spinal fluid in the lab. His first instinct was to thrash against his restraints, to reach Joe at any cost, to take the needle out of his love’s back and then stick it in someone else’s eye socket. Nicky forced himself to stay put though. He didn’t want to add his distress on top of Joe’s, and when Joe finally passed out from the pain Nicky couldn’t help but breathe in relief.

The memory of the defeated look on Joe’s face when they found out about Andy’s mortality, mixed with the anger in his voice as Booker confessed his betrayal was probably the most difficult yet. Nicky had his own feelings about Andy’s time, too close to Nile’s arrival and the evidence of Quỳnh’s survival to be a coincidence, but the anguish in Joe’s shouts as he lashed out took precedent in Nicky’s heart. He could almost feel the coppery taste of his love’s helplessness as Joe’s words bleed out of him.

Nicky is ready to put the blame on those last two events, the last blows, to label the weight that is making Joe fall apart right in front of him, when another memory, foggy and blurry, makes the blood in his veins turn into ice. Nicky remembers the struggle to keep his eyes open. He remembers looking for Joe in a room full of smoke and the realisation hits Nicky like a knee pressed on his chest, depriving him from air, blowing his brains out.

Nicky steps closer to Joe in the shower, rests a hand in the junction between his neck and shoulder, puts the other on his face, his thumb caressing right above his freckles. He feels the wet skin beneath his fingers and he knows it would taste salty if he decides to kiss it. Nicky takes a deep breath and concentrates on the feel of Joe’s beard under his palm. He sinks his fingers in the coarse hair with a sigh.

“My love,” Nicky repeats, almost a whisper this time. Joe’s jaw twitches against his hold and Nicky wants to say that it’s okay, that Joe can let go, but the words fail him so he does the next best thing and presses their foreheads together.

He immediately feels Joe relaxing against him, his breathing coming out as shaky and shallow. Nicky nods as he starts to dig his hand on the tighten muscles of Joe’s shoulders, all the way to the back of his neck. Joe lets out a strangled groan when Nicky touches it and he lifts his head. Nicky feels relief blooming inside his chest as he finds Joe staring back at him, and he traces a thumb over the line made by tears disappearing into his beard.

“It’s okay,” Nicky says pressing his other hand against the base of Joe’s skull, feeling for the fragile bones. “I am here.”

Joe opens his mouth, but it’s like he forgot how to form words, for he snaps it closed violently at the same time he shuts his eyes, the wrinkles in his forehead tensed. Nicky knows Joe would have started to shake his head now, maybe he would even try to extricate himself from him, if it wasn’t for Nicky’s hands keeping him still.

“Yusuf, look at me,” he says in Arabic, and that causes Joe to react and open his eyes. “I am here, I am not going anywhere.”

Suddenly, there’s something else on Joe’s face beside pain. It’s familiar and Nicky quickly recognises the anger and the doubt, and it’s probably the latter that hurts him the most. A millennia old argument, a millennia old fear. He feels that fear as well, but not like Joe does.

Joe never made his fear of having to carry on without Nicky a secret, and Nicky saw that fear every time Joe searched for him after a mission gone wrong, as Joe searched for Nicky’s pulse in their sleep, as they searched for Quỳnh and Yusuf avoided Andromache’s eyes for he had confessed to Nicolò he couldn’t help to picture himself in her place, and was so thankful that he wasn’t.

“Here,” Nicky says letting go of Joe’s face to grab one of his hands and place it on the back of his own neck. “Can’t you feel it? I am here.”

Joe’s eyes fill with water and he closes them again, letting the stream of tears flow. He struggles in Nicky’s hold, and Nicky can see how his love is in pain, his Adam’s apple bulging, his ribcage heaving with accumulated dread. Nicky notices the small patch where Joe’s chest hair was hastily shaved so that doctor could stick an electrode on him. Nicky touches it reverently, mourning the soft texture he usually had under his fingers.

Nicky can barely feel Joe’s hand on the back of his neck, and he knows Joe is afraid to feel that Nicky’s hair is missing from where the bullet went through. Nicky regrets his rush to get to Joe’s hair earlier. He should have let Joe touch him to his heart’s content, allow him to inspect the former wound, maybe let Joe press his gentle tongue against the bone to be sure it has healed, make sure Nicky was whole. He sighs and dips his head so he can press his mouth to Joe’s chest. He kisses the warm skin, feeling it tremble under his lips. His next words come out muffled.

“I am sorry,” Nicky says. “I am sorry it took me so long to come back this time.”

He feels Joe’s getting a firm grip on the back of his head this time, his fingers prodding Nicky’s skull as his free hand wraps around his waist, pulling him closer until they are touching everywhere from head to toe, two pieces made to fit.

“Don’t you dare, Nicolò,” Joe utters between gritted teeth, and Nicky can feel how he forces the words out of his chest, vibrating against his lips still pressed over Joe’s skin. “This is not your burden to carry.”

Nicky lifts his head immediately. Joe’s tears are running free and his eyes are the most beautiful thing in the world, full of life and hope. Nicky knows Joe won’t ever hurt so much if he didn’t have laughter in his soul and Nicky would love him even more if he could. He knows he will spend the rest of his eternity trying.

“I love you,” Nicky says as he reaches up so he can kiss Joe’s stained cheeks, one after the other. “I have loved you since you offered me your hand in that battlefield. You pulled me to my feet and you never let me down ever since.” Joe is staring back at him, his lips slightly parted, and Nicky resists the urge to kiss him. “To share your burden is an honour and a privilege. Please-”

Joe does not reply, does not move. He looks at him for such a long time the water finally turns cold on them, but Nicky barely notices, for the hold of Joe’s arms never falter. His eyes are still bright with tears and he looks so beautiful that Nicky wants to pick up from where they have left off, but it’s not the time. He waits until Joe finally nods and leans closer, laying his head on his shoulder. He sighs in relief when Joe finally lets go.

Nicky smiles and bears the heaviness of Joe’s body as if he weighed nothing at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading this little story. If you liked it, please consider sharing your thoughts in the comments section/clicking the kudos button. <3
> 
> And if you enjoy reading about our lovely Joe/Yusuf on a regular basis, [my Big Bang fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29912643) is a long story focused on him, so maybe it would interest you as well? I am deeply grateful to everyone who has read that one already. I am a bit late replying to all your wonderful comments, but I will get there, I promise.
> 
> I am [negotiumcrucis](http://negotiumcrucis.tumblr.com/) @ Tumblr, feel free to stop by anytime.


End file.
